18th Birthmoon

“““Happy Birthmoon!”””

The chorus of familiar voices quickly moved to either side, revealing behind them small boxes, potted plants, and trinkets that were arranged on the table.

Birthdays didn’t exist in the Night Domain before my arrival, but one mention of the celebration had started a new Kogen tradition. Over the last few years they’d decided to start celebrating my “birthmoon” on the 53rd Red Moon of the year, the moon I’d arrived. I was a few weeks off from my fourteenth birthday when I died, so I was now eighteen- probably a month over eighteen in my old world, considering the fact that there are 55 weeks in a year here.

“I made a stained glass landscape for you. Momma and Ma helped- does it look right?” Creyna drew my attention first to a pane of metal and glass about twice as large as a sheet of paper, attached to a chain. The scene matched pretty clearly the descriptions I’d given Creyna over the years of a slightly cloudy blue sky and tree-littered mountaintops, and when I looked a bit closer I could tell that the lines of the mountains followed one of the sketches I’d made in the past. I knew from experience that they’d melted each of the pieces, glass and metal alike, themselves over time, and something like this likely took them at least a few weeks.

“This- ah, thank you, this looks perfect!”

“I got a hold of the most savory mushrooms you’ve ever heard of,” Biarn added, pointing me to two boxes. One presumably had live samples while the other, larger one contained ones already prepared to eat. Biarn and I had spent a lot of time over the past few years exploring different foods and ingredients, and savory mushrooms were still one of my favorite foods here.

“We’re definitely trying those in stew.”

Gift after gift showed everyone’s consideration of me, how much they’d grown to care for me, sentiments I’d been returning with as equal measure as I could these last few years.

When we’d figured out what my affinity was, just about everyone in the village walked on eggshells around me for a while. They were all worried that one wrong move could send me to my grave, again, but overtime we figured out that I was hardy enough. So long as I wasn’t expending much or any of my magic I could withstand other affinities just fine. By now everyone had thankfully relaxed, at least for the most part.

“Be sure to let me know if you need any adjustments, alright?” Luen the tailor, his family at his side, handed me a brand new vest and set of dressings, which he’d added pockets and other ornaments to based on the different things I’d mentioned to him over the years.

“We’ve brought some frozen deymab, Zida’s already put it in storage.” Byza and several of the other hunters and their families had taken their own particular liking to me, which I suppose was inevitable given the fact that my healing had saved a few of their lives.

“Thank you, all of you!”

My job had become organic magic device and material maintenance, which of course meant I continued to spend a lot of time with Loali, as well as Fridle and Itelber, though it took a while for any of them to feel comfortable letting me into the workshop again. Using important organic devices had primarily become my responsibility, as I could greatly extend their lives and thereby save the village a lot of money. Since I’d had to use the devices all over the village, I’d had plenty of chances to get to know most of the about a hundred villagers.

“I finally found a fairy lemon lime!” Loali’s excited voice drew me to the largest plant on the table, which was about the size of my chest. It was something I’d been wanting to find for the last year or so, since I’d first heard of it. Its appearance was rather ordinary by the standards I’d come to adopt for plants here, with some faint striping of yellowy light at the edges of its pointy, abundant, long leaves, but it had other capabilities I was excited to explore.

“I can’t imagine how you got ahold of it,” I smiled, just holding back a sigh of exasperation.

“Every favor I called in was worth it.” She proudly replied, and I nodded.

By now, I’d had a lot of experience working with magic devices, including some efforts involving creating magic devices on my own. We hadn’t been able to get any materials capable of holding my magic to make a healing device, but like Loali I’d been able to develop my ability to manipulate a few affinities of magic I didn’t have. I couldn’t reach anywhere close to her level of proficiency in most of the areas I attempted to work, but somewhat recently we unexpectedly found an area in which I excelled.

My greatest achievement thus far had been creating devices from plants, including monster alerting trees, crop monitoring weeds, and similar things. I was the only person who could make these specific devices that any of us knew of for one simple reason. All the “devices” I’d made involved still-living plants.

“You think I should follow my original plan for the fairy lemon lime?”

“Don’t get nervous over it’s rarity now.” Loali scoffed, accompanied by the giggles of partygoers who’d just started to disperse a bit to grab food. Just before he headed off, I caught a knowing look from Biarn. There were a few possible sources for it that I could think of, not the least of which was his fondness for noting how much time I spent with Loali working with magic.

“Yeah, you’re right- maybe I should go ahead and ask it now?”

“That’s probably a good idea, or else you might work yourself up.”

Maybe my supposed connection to the Gloam Tree had something to do with it, including my healing affinity itself, but plants accepted my will easily, whereas others trying to turn plants into living devices either killed the plants or simply failed. I still needed to concentrate on and believe in specific images in my mind to make the plants function in the way I wanted, but as long as I did so the plants were happy to do as I asked if they were at all able. In a sense, they became magic pseudo-devices, still very much carrying on with their lives and simply adopting an additional task or two from me or developing in slightly different ways. Providing them just a small amount of healing magic seemed to make the process easier, and when I checked up on the plants I always provided a bit more magic as a sort of “thank you.”

“You’re not flowering at the moment, but maybe you could do something for me when you do...” I gently ran my fingers over the smooth leaves, leaving behind just a bit of my magic as I did so. Nearly instantly I felt a faint response, though it was as difficult to decipher as it usually was at first.

It’s hard to explain, especially when no real words or emotions really passed between us, but somehow I could sense a sort of enthusiasm and kinship each time I interacted with a plant I’d asked to take on a task for me, and it was a feeling I’d grown fond of. In turn, I’d grown more and more motivated to create plant pseudo-devices.

“It’s receptive, isn’t it? The leaves are changing, just like with the whistle weeds.” Loali asked, and I didn’t need to look away from the pulsing leaves myself to know that her eyes were as excited as mine.

“It seems to be.”

Silence passed briefly between us as I concentrated more keenly on the magic and senses at my fingertips and my own desires for the plant.

Would you speak with me when you bloom?

I had many tiny thoughts to convey to them, each describing my wishes for what I wanted them to speak of and hopes I had for them, and as they received my thoughts I could start to feel a familiar kinship with the fairy lemon lime, which only continued to grow. The sensation wasn’t totally surprising to me, given the fact that I was asking them to develop capabilities to communicate with me that exceeded other plants, but the brevity with which they accomplished it was exciting. They couldn’t speak yet, but they were already making their own will clearer to me by the second.

They seemed to tell me that they would be happy to speak with me, and soon.

“They should be blooming for the first time in a couple of weeks.”

“That’s perfect timing,” Loali said, “we said we wanted to go looking for the Gloam Tree sometime after the White Moon, right? If they can bloom by then, we could be good to go on the 1rst Violet Moon.”

“I think so.” I replied, excited and nervous.

Since I hadn’t taken my hand away from the leaves yet, those emotions filtered into the plant as well, which returned some vague concern. “Ah, sorry. We’ll be just fine.” I whispered, and finally removed my hand.

“Don’t go worrying them now,” Loali chuckled, and I just shook my head.

“They’ll be alright. I’ll be careful not to let my nerves get to them from now on.”